Chapter 154: The Scarlet Eagle and the Stolen Auction Items
After a brief parting exchange with Hanzou, an old acquaintance now serving as bodyguard, the three small people left in a collectively dejected state.
Gon was worrying about the possibility that his best friend might not want to play with him anymore.
Killua was working through how to find a reasonable way to include Alluka in the game.
Alluka was afraid that their brother might leave them behind.
Three separate worries, all circling around the same central question of how to play together. Uniquely appropriate anxieties for people who were the equivalent of sixth graders.
Ross watched their retreating figures with the expression of a middle-aged man watching his grandchildren leave, benevolent but faintly smug. Even if physically, he was only about five years older than Killua. Barely a different generation by any objective count.
The most direct solution, in Ross's view, was simply to have the Dracula family throw money at the problem and purchase a copy of Greed Island outright. Then they could ignore everyone else's rules and play however they wanted.
The Dracula family had historically been limited to Neon's divination service as their primary cash source, which left them nowhere close to the deep-rooted major criminal organizations. But in recent months they had moved into construction, and in a certain sense had made it their signature business.
The rough model: establish a temporary Castlevania enclave in whatever region needed construction, then deploy large quantities of humanoid monster units, no wages, no rest, no food or water, no protective equipment, limitless physical strength, available around the clock and requiring no compensation if damaged, as the baseline labor. Compared to human engineering crews these monsters could only handle the most basic tasks, but through twenty-four hours of uninterrupted nonstop work they closed the gap through volume. The human side only needed to handle the big picture. Efficiency ended up higher than a conventional construction crew.
Dracula, who in every game had his castle perpetually getting demolished, had stumbled into the construction industry. The world was a strange place.
Based on this highly efficient, low-overhead operational model, even after only one quarter of business, the Dracula family had established a firm foothold in construction, with a cash flow that was frankly absurd in its health.
Nowhere close to someone like Battera who could pull out two or three hundred billion without blinking, but acquiring a single copy of Greed Island through sheer monetary force was well within reach.
The problem was that neither Gon nor Killua would want that.
For Gon, searching for his father was something close to a pilgrimage. The destination mattered, but so did the path. He wanted to find Ging through his own ability. Using someone else's resources was the same as cheating, and even if the outcome was the same, that wasn't the outcome he wanted.
That had been made entirely clear during the Hunter Exam's final test, the scene where he pressured Hanzou. If things didn't go the way he wanted them to, Gon genuinely wouldn't accept it, even at the cost of his own life.
Killua's thinking was more mature. He simply understood that he couldn't keep casually adding to the debt he owed to Neon and the Dracula family. If only his own future was bearing the weight of that goodwill, he could accept it. But Alluka could not be affected. That was Killua's absolute line.
"They've both come a long way."
Hanzou was genuinely impressed. The Gon who had been easily overpowered during the Hunter Exam's final test now clearly had the standing to face him in an actual fight.
Even without deliberately using Gyo, you could feel it: the aura circulating inside Gon with the calm steadiness of water, reserves deep and unhurried.
"He's Ging Freecss's son. His Nen talent and his mental makeup aren't in question. In terms of pure potential, it would be hard for most people to even come close."
Ross didn't particularly like Gon's personality, but he had nothing but unqualified praise for his Nen ability talent.
Given twenty years and methodical, step-by-step tempering of his body and aura, Gon would absolutely have a place on the list of the world's top-tier fighters.
Ross clapped Hanzou on the shoulder and started scrolling through his phone, checking the Dream Auction's current item listing.
Beyond the items that had been pre-registered well in advance, the organizers had been accepting new auction entries continuously over the past two days, so the list was updating in real time.
For Ross, beyond anything potentially related to game cartridges, the only item worth noting was Greed Island, and even as the acting head of the Todo Group, he couldn't put together two or three hundred billion. So he was just checking periodically in case something worth wanting turned up in the new additions.
He was scrolling mechanically to the next page when a grainy image of an unremarkable-looking object flashed past the screen. Ross's whole body snapped to attention. After a brief stunned pause he immediately scrolled back.
The image showed a strange humanoid statue holding a strange stone spear.
"A complete humanoid stone statue excavated from an unknown ruins site."
"The statue preserves approximately human limbs and facial features. Its distinguishing characteristic is an X-shaped marking at the center of the forehead."
"The statue's right hand grips a stone spear. The speartip is shovel-like, in a reverse crescent shape. The overall spear is a dark grey color, with clearly visible ancient inscriptions carved along the shaft."
"The corresponding civilization is entirely unknown. Has some research value."
"Opening bid: one point five billion jenny."
Ross's gaze was fixed on the statue in the exhibition photograph. More precisely: on the stone spear it held in its hand, the one shaped like a shovel.
He stared at it until his eyes were practically dry. Then he summoned the navigation arrow, removed the Ninja and Clone keywords, and left only a single keyword active.
Bald.
The next instant, the navigation arrow shot toward Ross's phone screen like a dog launching itself at something it recognized, scanned and sniffed the image thoroughly, and then locked onto a direction. A direction that was completely different from anything it had previously indicated for the TMNT cartridge items.
The direction it was pointing in was the location of tomorrow's underground auction venue.
"Sandayu... Crimson Eagle..."
Ross murmured two names that Hanzou had absolutely never heard in his life.
September 1st. Yorknew City Dream Auction. Thirty minutes before the official start.
A tall man in casual clothes arrived at the vault holding the auction items. He wore sunglasses and a goatee.
His name was Owl. He was a member of the Ten Dons' direct-line Shadow Beast unit, and had received orders to come and temporarily relocate all auction items.
His ability was called Packet Furoshiki. It allowed him to pack enormous quantities of items into a massive carrying cloth, shrinking them and drastically reducing their weight in the process. The organization's transporter.
An entire vault's worth of items at this scale could be packed and carried out in one go with a single furoshiki.
The vault door opened. What filled Owl's sunglasses first was a strange pink ball of something wriggling in the most prominent position in the room.
Owl knew the inventory list. There was nothing alive in the auction items. The situation clearly wasn't right. He quickened his pace immediately and reached out, somewhat carelessly, to grab whatever this suspicious pink ball creature was.
Possibly the careless aggression in Owl's intent alarmed the ball, because it turned around immediately, revealing a highly cartoonish face wearing an expression of mild annoyance, with plump little limbs, and then it opened its mouth.
In the next instant, terrifying suction erupted from the pink ball's open mouth and swallowed the completely unprepared Owl in one piece.
The pink ball, having cleanly swallowed Owl whole, showed no change in size. There was a brief motion of swallowing. Then a flash of light, and a pair of sunglasses appeared from nowhere on the ball's face.
The sunglasses-wearing ball gave a casual shake of one small hand. A massive furoshiki appeared from nowhere. It was flung upward with a single casual flick toward the vault ceiling.
Every single auction item filling the vault disappeared instantly into the furoshiki, which had already shrunk to the size of a palm.
The pink ball appeared extremely satisfied with its work. It tossed the stuffed furoshiki into its mouth and swallowed it too.
All of this was witnessed by the staff member standing outside the vault door, trembling in every limb.
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